From membership conditionality to policy conditionality: EU external governance in South Eastern Europe

Abstract In view of the uncertainty about the final outcome of the current enlargement process, how effective is the EU's acquis conditionality in South Eastern Europe? By elaborating on the example of justice and home affairs, the article argues that the EU's external leverage has remained strong, as the EU has developed additional ways to render its conditionality approach credible. Although the hurdles for entering the EU have been raised, Croatia's compliance efforts can be considered to be similar to the logic observed in the eastern enlargement. The key to understanding the compliance of Macedonia, whose membership prospect is less certain or even questionable, is to take into account policy conditionality in addition to membership conditionality. The EU managed to compensate for less credible membership rewards by substantially increasing the value of the policy reward of visa-free travel. This strategy was effective but has created tensions with regard to the EU's broader objectives in the region. Keywords: Conditionalityenlargementexternal governancejustice and home affairsSouth Eastern Europe ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful for helpful comments on earlier drafts provided by Gerda Falkner, Oliver Treib, Sylvia Kritzinger, Andreas Wimmel, Paul Luif, Zoe Lefkofridi, Juan Casado Asensio, Bernhard Zeilinger, the two anonymous JEPP referees, the participants of the LSE Fornet Workshop on the ‘Justice and Home Affairs External Dimension’ in London, 21 September 2007, and of the EU Consent Workshop ‘Deepening in an Enlarged Europe: Integrative Balancing in the New Member States’ in Budapest, 16–17 November 2007. Notes Under this term, the EU subsumes Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Kosovo. The EU was not satisfied with this approach but expressed unambiguously that Croatia's performance in solving outstanding border issues would be an important component of the Union's overall assessment concerning Croatia's involvement in regional co-operation (see Commission of the European Communities Citation2005: 33). According to figures from the Croatian Ministry of the Interior (2006), the number of illegal migrants of Albanian ethnicity entering Croatia increased by 300 per cent in 2003. Most illegal crossings were attempted at the border to Serbia, with numbers showing a significant increase of plus 105 per cent between 2004 and 2005. By the end of 2007, Croatia had signed readmission agreements with 24 countries, including Western and Eastern European and other SAP states. The use of benchmarks became relevant when Croatia was allowed to begin concrete accession talks. Following the Commission's recommendation, when EU member states decide whether or not to open a chapter of the acquis for negotiations, they may include benchmarks to be met by Croatia before the specific negotiations start. The most important new law in this respect was the Law on Control of the State Border adopted in May 2006. Other efforts to bring the Macedonian border control system closer to European standards included the creation of a national integrated border management strategy and the establishment of a National Border Management Co-ordination Centre with a focus on strengthening the co-operation of the agencies involved in border management. The campaign was called ‘Visa, forget about it’. For more details, see: http://www.aegee-skopje.org.mk/